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More on Port Security

Sark today sought to quell the growing controversy over his decision to grant the MCP control of several major ports throughout the region.

"I believe that this arrangement with the Master Control Program should go forward," Sark told reporters aboard Solar Sailer One. He emphasized that security would continued to be handled by Tank and Recognizer programs, with the MCP only be in charge of port operations.

But Dumont, guardian of the I/O towers, voiced skepticism. "I could understand ceding authority over ports 21 and 80," said Dumont. "But port 443? That's supposed to be secure!"

The public's reaction to the plan has also been overwhelmingly negative. "No no no," said a bit upon hearing the news. "No no no no." Others were more blunt. "Sark should be de-rezzed for even proposing this," said Ram, a financial program.

Sark, who has repeatedly denied having ties to the MCP, has insisted that the hand-over go through, and says that he will vigorously resist any effort to block it. But programs such as Yori are equally adamant that the deal be scuttled. "My User," she said, "have we already forgotten the lessons of 1000222846?"

"Osama, Saddam and the Ports, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: The storm of protest over the planned takeover of some U.S. port operations by Dubai Ports World doesn't make sense viewed in isolation. The Bush administration clearly made no serious effort to ensure that the deal didn't endanger national security. But that's nothing new — the administration has spent the past four and a half years refusing to do anything serious about protecting the nation's ports... Now comes the ports deal. ... after all those declarations that we're engaged in a global war on terrorism, after all the terror alerts ... the administration can't suddenly change its theme song to "Don't Worry, Be Happy." ... This isn't just a Middle Eastern company; it's ... part of the authoritarian United Arab Emirates, one of only three countries that recognized the Taliban as the legitimate ruler of Afghanistan. ... [A]fter years of systematically suggesting that Arabs who didn't attack us are the same as Arabs who did, the administration can't suddenly turn around and say, "But these are good Arabs.""

Funny how the whitehouse appears to be selling large US infrastructure to foreign government controlled corporations... Wasn't it just last year that CNOOC had Whitehouse support to buy Unocol? Besides selling nuclear technology to India what else is left to check the trade balance and prop the dollar? Sell NASA?